“No.”
Vasíly Vasílitch turned over in bed.—“But thou art jesting, damn it?”
“No, I’m not jesting.”—I hear him go scratch, scratch with a match, and that thing does not stop, but scratches its side. The flame flashed up ... and basta! There was not a trace of a dog! Vasíly Vasílitch stared at me—and I stared at him.
“What sort of a trick is this?”—said he.
“Why,”—said I,—“this is such a trick that if thou wert to set Socrates himself on one side and Frederick the Great on the other even they couldn’t make head or tail of it.”—And thereupon I told him all in detail. Up jumped my Vasíly Vasílitch as though he had been singed! He couldn’t get into his boots.
“Horses!”—he yelled—“horses!”
I began to argue with him, but in vain. He simply groaned.
“I won’t stay,”—he shouted,—“not a minute!—Of course, after this, thou art a doomed man!—Horses!...”
But I prevailed upon him. Only his bed was dragged out into another room—and night-lights were lighted everywhere. In the morning, at tea, he recovered his dignity; he began to give me advice.
“Thou shouldst try absenting thyself from the house for several days, Porfíry Kapítonitch,” he said: “perhaps that vile thing would leave thee.”